September 14th, 2010
Survival of the Fittest?
Natural Selection, or “survival of the fittest,” is the mechanism which is usually proposed to drive evolution. It seems obvious that those organisms, which are more “fit” in a particular environment or under particular conditions, will be those that survive.
However, by itself, natural selection has no power to “create” anything. At best, all it can do is “choose” between organisms that already exist. Thus, it has no power to explain the origin of a new trait. Furthermore, since survival depends upon a whole suite of traits, selection for only one particular trait would be rare. In addition, observations have shown that highly specialized organisms may have an advantage in a very specialized environment, but are much less likely to survive in less specialized environments or under changing conditions.
Thus, as an evolutionary force, natural selection does not seem to have what it takes to explain the origin or diversity of the vast array of organisms observed on this planet. For more information on the inability of both Mutation and Natural Selection to explain evolution, please see the article on What's the evidence.
By Dave Nutting
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